It has been only a week and a half working at the Ethiopian National Project and I already feel like I have accomplished a lot. I have decided to write down everything concrete that I have produced as I go in the back of my notebook. That way anytime that I'm not sure I've done enough, I will have written evidence of goals accomplished.

What helps is that I feel very enthusiastic about the work that I am doing. The organization is a mixture of a lot of different types of people and many of their main staff are Ethiopian. While my task manager is not Ethiopian, my field instructor was born in Ethiopia and came to Israel on Operation Moses when he was 20 years old. So far I have had one meeting with him, with another tomorrow but he really is a fascinating person. Born in Ethiopia, his grandfather who was the head of his village saw the importance in education. He built the first school in his village in Ethiopia and made my field instructor and his eight brothers and sisters attend. When he was 20 years old he traveled through Ethiopia and Sudan in order to make it to Israel. He served in the army as a social worker and went on to get his bachelors in social work and a masters in public administration. There are several other staff I have met who are Ethiopian that also traveled to Israel as a child in order to escape from persecution in Ethiopia.

This is the first time that I've had this opportunity to take a part in a marketing initiative that I know if effective, can make a large difference in the lives of a lot of Ethiopian teens in the coming fall. My work with Solomon's Mosaic is already in full swing and I am really proud of what I have accomplished. On my first day of working at ENP, with the help of my task manager we came up with the idea of marketing the mosaic using tangible marketing materials. The thought was that if we could create something that we could pass out to volunteer groups and hand out on trips to the United States we would be able to spark interest in Solomon's Mosaic. With the idea at hand, I went right to work creating a card, similar to a greeting card. What is really amazing to me is that I was given the opportunity to take an idea that I visualized and make it concrete.

Today I was handed my very first printed Solomon's Mosaic card to be used for marketing. With the card in hand, I was very happy to have already contributed something that I think could really make an impact in marketing the mosaic. Later on in the day the cards were handed out to a visiting group at one of the Youth Centers. It is really just amazing to me that something I created will be handed out to hundreds, maybe even thousands of people not just in Israel but in the United States too.

Along with this I have been working on making the website for Solomon's Mosaic a place that people don't just buy tiles but finds resources to educate themselves and others on Ethiopian Jewry and Operation Solomon. If you go to the website (www.solomonsmosaic.org) and check out the resources, activities and several other sections you will see what I have been doing. It is important to not just market Solomon's Mosaic in order to get people to buy tiles, but to encourage them to educate their friends, families and communities on Ethiopian Jewry and on the miracle that was Operation Solomon.

I feel as if I have really been able to think outside the box and be creative with my ideas. There is so much room to create and contribute that I am very satisfied with what I have been doing so far. To go along with this, today I got to work with a mission trip that came to see the Youth Center and Scholastic Assistance program in Bet Shemesh, a city not far from Jerusalem where I live. There were several reasons that today was so significant. The first is that I took a large role in creating the activity for todays group. The teenagers from the Youth Center were going to go see the Israeli Idol show today (similar to American Idol) so we created an activity called "Kochav Nolad." In english this means "A Star is Born." While together we brainstormed the general idea, I was in charge of creating the design for the activity and putting the ideas into something concrete that we could use. The activity came out really amazing and I got a lot of complements on it. Today was also my first time seeing the programs that ENP does and it really helped me see how important the work I am doing actually is. It gave me perspective and I think that is extremely important.

The group first went to see the Scholastic Assistance program where they played english games with the younger kids. The kids were really amazing and so enthusiastic about meeting the group and hanging out with them. It really goes to show that even with some language barrier that there can always be other ways to communicate. Language does not always have to create a barrier to communicate with kids. Afterwards they went to the Youth Center, which to me appeared to be a bomb shelter in the ground. Its quite possible, it being Israel, that it was a bomb shelter that they turned into a center for teenagers. On average in Bet Shemesh they can have between 40 and 50 kids at the center. There are 80 kids that regularly attend the center that is open form 4pm to 10 pm every day, with extended hours in the summer. The activity I created surrounded the idea of being a star, or being a leader. We put the visitors in groups with the teens from the center and had them decide what kind of star they wanted to be. I was really touched by some of the answers that the kids came up with. They picked from a pile of cards on the floor which I had designed and had the opportunity to come up with their own. While language at the center was a barrier, some could speak a little english. For those that could not they spoke in hebrew and someone translated. One boy said "I want to be a good parent because its nice to have a family and children." It really put a smile on my face because although it was a card I didn't expect one of them to pick it. Afterwards the group worked as a team to come up with five qualities they would need to be a star. They all really amazed me with the answers they picked up from the set of cards. Many of them said "Perseverance", "Hard-worker", and "Good Communication Skills."

There are many more groups that I am going to work with throughout the summer but todays visit made me excited for ones in the future.

Really at the end of the day, this is a very exciting opportunity. Its different and its challenging and its definitely outside the box. Whether or not I am in Israel or not, I see this opportunity only enhancing my skills and abilities.